Wild Flower - Viper’s Bugloss

Viper’s Bugloss - a wild flower seen throughout Central Otago at the moment, and has turned some of our paddocks into a purple blue haze. The plant has a sharp, prickly spotted stem and it was once considered an antidote to a viper’s snake bite (although I’m not sure exactly how it was used for this...). The flowers start pink and change to vivid purple blue, and I loved this pale blue phase. With some growing up to a metre tall, they can be a quite a lovely wild flower to put in a vase, and I did a wee test - they last at least a week.